The AsterNym star registry
Asellus Borealis
Asellus Borealis: the white star of Cancer
white · Cancer · γ Cnc
Asellus Borealis is a white star, burning hotter than our own Sun in the constellation Cancer, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.66 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Asellus Borealis is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Asellus Borealis at a glance
- Constellation
- Cancer
- Other name
- γ Cnc
- Catalogue number
- HIP 42806
- Distance
- ≈ 181 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.66 naked-eye
- Star type
- A1IV
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 08h 43m 17s
- Declination
- +21° 28′ 07″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Asellus Borealis?
Asellus Borealis is a white subgiant. Its surface runs around 7,500 to 10,000°C, hot enough to look white or blue-white to the eye. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
These are the classic bright white stars. Sirius and Vega are both this kind, and they are the reason people describe stars as white when most of the galaxy's stars are actually red and too faint to see.
A star of this class gets roughly a thousand million years, a tenth of what the Sun gets.
It is a subgiant, caught in the short crossing between an ordinary life and a giant one. Its core has run out of hydrogen but its outer layers have not finished expanding, and astronomically this stage passes quickly.
Asellus Borealis drifts about 11.4 arcseconds a century against the stars behind it. Slow by any human measure, and still enough that the sky your distant descendants see will not be the one in your photographs.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Asellus Borealis tonight left in about 1845, some 181 years ago. Everything that has happened since, every person you have heard of from the last few centuries, happened while it was in transit.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What could a Asellus Borealis dedication represent?
Asellus Borealis is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Cancer in the sky.”
Where can you see Asellus Borealis?
It sits 21° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°N. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.66 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Asellus Borealis belongs to Cancer.
What does Asellus Borealis mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Asellus Borealis, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Asellus Borealis stands at 7° Leo at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 27 July in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Asellus Borealis to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Asellus Borealis →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Asellus Borealis dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Asellus Borealis's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Asellus Borealis keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Asellus Borealis
- What does Asellus Borealis mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Asellus Borealis. Projected onto the zodiac, Asellus Borealis stands at 7° Leo, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 27 July.
- Is Asellus Borealis the brightest star?
- Asellus Borealis shines at magnitude 4.66 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Asellus Borealis?
- Asellus Borealis is approximately 181 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 181 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Asellus Borealis?
- Asellus Borealis is part of Cancer.
- Can everyone see Asellus Borealis?
- It sits 21° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 69°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 21°N. It stands highest at midnight in February, so February and March evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.66 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Asellus Borealis an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Asellus Borealis keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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